We’ll be making art, visiting amazing indigenous crafts villages (the best in all of Mexico), eating, and…yeah, shopping for textiles: embroidery, weaving, tassels… one-of-a-kind pieces of clothing to wear and unique home decor.

It’s a small group of 10 max, who love textiles and want to have a creative adventure.

Now more than ever, we need women’s wisdom and women’s voices in the world. We need women in their full creative power. Especially women over 50.

The Wiser & Wilder Creative Immersion Retreat offers a unique opportunity to gather, create, play, explore and have FUN in a sacred, safe and supportive container.

The gift of a 5-day creative immersion allows you to step away from your ordinary life, connect with kindred women peers, and have the time and space to create without interruption.

Imagine: someone else is be doing all of the cleaning and cooking and organizing! All you need to do is show up and open to your own creativity.

Open to all women 50+, no art or writing experience necessary. Absolute beginners are encouraged!

The Creative Sketchbook

Four Weeks | Online

Self-Paced with lifetime access

The Creative Sketchbookis the foundational course that shows you how to effortlessly combine word, image, collage and photography to create richly layered visual journals, and learn about the Creative Journey Method, woven in to all these workshops.

Worried that you “aren’t qualified”, don’t have enough experience, or are simply confused about how to put it all together?

Have your tried launching programs that just…fizzled? Or flopped? Have you ever felt like a failure (or a total fraud) when it comes to designing and teaching workshops?

Take a deep breath, exhale, and take heart. You are not alone and this is what every teacher feels when they are starting out.

There is a LOT that goes into leading successful workshops. In this training, I’ll share everything I’ve learned and practiced, over a 30 year career of leading workshops on five continents (and counting!).

You’ll get templates and programs to get you started teaching while you’re still in the training (if you wish), and support from a growing community of sister “guidesses” around the world who have completed the training.

Workshops with Lisa Sonora

Workshops and trainings are designed to help you access their own creativity and imagination.

Whether you think your “not creative”, are a working artist who needs a shift, or just want to create but have no idea where to begin, we all benefit from fresh ways of approaching the blank page.

While we use art supplies in the workshops, we use art-making to take a creative journey. We’re cultivating a personal creative practice that helps you meet what challenges life throws at you.

The blank page beautifully mirrors of our life, after all. This is good!

We play around on the paper in non-threatening ways, and this auto-magically translates into doing things differently in life.

Our creative journey is taken in the spirit of healing, finding our voice, daring to trust our own inner guidance, putting form to our ideas.

This is really no less than a spiritual path, a kind of pilgrimage of the soul.

The Paradox of Putting Process Before Product

Any creative path and practice that emphasizes process over product will lead you deeply inward and result in health. Working this way is an antidote to self-destruction and self-sabotage.

If you’ve been stuck or confused or just…wondering…how can I express myself more?

How can I dare act on my creative ideas?

Especially if you are plagued with old ideas like: I’m not creative.., I’m not an artist…, It’s too late…, I’ve already tried blah, blah, blah…Why Bother?!

These are the kinds of old stories that tear us down and keep us stuck.

This is where fear and resistance thrive.

The good news: none if this is a big deal once you have a few skills and tools that actually change the negativity into something life-giving and useful.

Shorthand word is: Happification.

Creativity soars when we re-create the stories we tell ourselves. This re-creates our world. From the inside out.

The ultimate work of art is YOU.

When we put the creative process in front of the creative product we hope to achieve, we are liberated from perfectionism, criticism, and the doubts and fears that keep us stuck.

It’s not like we’re giving up on have a great product.

Great products and outcomes become a natural result of our creative practice.

Who Benefits From This Work

If you’re here, you might have a lot in common with others who love this work, who are:

Eager to find their own creative voice, or body of work…and

figure out how to make a sustainable business out of it.

Longing to discover and express more of who they really are — without so much angst

Trying to figure out what’s next

Going through a life transition that is difficult or scary— like divorce, illness, empty nest, career change

Many participants struggle with being seen, or putting their work into the world.

I’ve taught workshops on five continents (and counting!), and have been gradually adapting my workshops to an online format, so that more can participate.

My first workshops were designed for groups of other therapists who wanted to use these methods with their patients.

As a meditation teacher, I discovered the whole process was a lot more fun with art supplies. So I combined spiritual inquiry with my creativity workshops. Wow! It was explosive, in a good way.

Doing spiritual practice and probing the psyche means that therapists, coaches, teachers, and healers are attracted to this work. Many of them have gone on to share the techniques with their clients.

While trying to figure out how to make a living as a nomadic artist who enjoyed long stints of time at retreats and traveling far off the beaten path, I ended up going to business school — thinking I would finally get a handle on making money, a subject wrought with angst for me on so many levels.

I like to joke I went through the trouble (and expense) of getting an MBA so you don’t have to.

The result of an artist / therapist / spiritual seeker / nomad going to business school became a body of work I created called: The Creative Entrepreneur Method.

The Creative Entrepreneur – a little back story

You might be familiar with my book, The Creative Entrepreneur, a visual guidebook to business strategy and creative process. (Quarry Books, 2008)

The Creative Entrepreneur is based on workshops I’ve taught internationally for more than 20 years, that offer participants tools and skills to thrive more and struggle less with the challenges particular to creative, introverted, sensitive types.

What most people don’t know, is that long before I wrote The Creative Entrepreneur, I taught experiential creativity workshops (my own work, and as a facilitator and trainer for other organizations).

Got Questions?

If you are wondering which workshop is right for you, or just have questions about my work or other details you didn’t find here, please do take a moment and dash me a note.

Supplies Needed

In all workshops, supplies are kept simple and somewhat minimal. We use a lot of art supplies that are not fancy. Things you can find at the office supply and department store. Kids are supplies work well for our process!

Hola! I'm Lisa Sonora. ME: an American artist and author living in Mexico. YOU: Crave more creativity, more meaning, more adventures — and are tired of the same old stuff getting in your way. Creativity + Travel + Courage has been the theme of my blog since 2002, and sums up my life mission: to dare to make my life a creative adventure and to help women create more, stress less, and take meaningful, once-in-a-lifetime creative journeys. Welcome to my virtual studio. It’s messy in here.
But not as messy as my real studio. My real studio is located in Oaxaca, Mexico, and you’re invited to come visit and create.